Dagger

Sitting down in a field of gra.s.s on a hill, a teenage boy was looking towards the darkness with blank eyes.

"Umm... excuse me, can I sit with you?" A girl asked from behind.

"Yes." The boy replied without looking back.

Sitting on the spot beside the boy, the girl asked, "Why are you looking there? There"s nothing to see. Why not look upwards instead? Look, there are a lot of stars."

The boy raised his head. The sky was glittering with many stars.

"What are you thinking?" The girl asked.

"Nothing." The boy replied.

"Then why are you looking blankly?" The girl inquired again.

"Nothing.", the boy answered.

"Then... why aren"t you happy? Is there anything wrong the people here?" The girl kept asking questions.

"I don"t have any emotions." The boy straightly responded.

"Pfft... hahaha...." The girl chuckled at the other"s reply. However, seeing that the boy didn"t react, she stopped laughing and questioned, "You"re joking, right?"

"No." The boy plainly said.

"Umm, what to ask next?." The girl inwardly pondered. After a short pause, she uttered, "I think it"s impossible that you don"t have any emotions."

The boy was still quiet.

"How did you even reach this far if you have no emotions? Won"t those type of people be standing still like they are dead? You know, you should stop lying if you want to get along with us. Senior brother said that lying is prohibited. There was an accident where a crafting room was blown up after an apprentice lied." The girl shared.

"No." The boy replied.

On the other hand, the girl facepalmed and thought, "This guy is so complicated."

***

It was already time for the 7th item of the auction. The previous items that were sold were materials used to make weapons, ingredients for alchemy such as a fruit and a plant, a powerful pill and an elixir.

"The objects that they auction here are so unique.", Edwin commented as he eagerly waited for the next item to show up. He recalled the large shiny Starstone that caused a commotion in the room.

"Seriously, that Starstone is worth 1,000 mana stones?", Edwin looked towards Allen and asked. But it"s still not as surprising as the price of the merged pill.

"The Starstone could be a prime material for creating a Major-Inferior grade weapon, even those sects from the Midea Republic would war for a mine of it." However, it wasn"t Allen who answered him, but was Alice.

"Just like how magicians in our kingdom would die even just for small mana springs, it"s almost the same for those eastern people would kill each other for those mines.", Allen added.

"Oh, but come to think of it, are there magicians in that nation?", Edwin asked, implying to the Midea Republic.

"There are a few groups of magicians there, but they call themselves "magus" in its singular word while "magi" in its plural sense.", Alice answered this time.

Before Edwin could ask questions again, as if knowing what he would inquire, Allen interjected, "Do you know the Ancient War of the southern region?"

"Yes.", Edwin nodded. He"d been hearing those from the stories of his grandfather.

"Then there"s also the Primeval Holy Conflict that occurred before the war of the south.", Allen said.

Edwin gave Allen that blank look of curiosity about the Primeval Holy Conflict. 

On the other hand, he knew what that glance and answered, "During those times, Trigurniburg Kingdom wasn"t founded yet. The whole land of our kingdom was under the control of the Retollian Church. When the church was at its peak, it had a gigantic domain. The Trigurniburg Kingdom today towards the Western Mountainous Region and to the three holy kingdoms beyond the mountains, was the dominion of the Pertheon Empire."

After a pause, he added, "Based on the books and historical accounts that I read, the Northern Forest and the Mendia Republic along with the islands on the east beyond the republic was under one government too. Well, those two gigantic powers didn"t get along at some point of time. This was where the split of culture and the war started, the word magician was replaced as magus in the east, and then their cultures started to further break apart from each other."

Alice began to take interest in the topic and listened even closer.

"Why didn"t they get along?", Edwin asked. From what he understood, those two seemingly giant powers had one single culture; it was absurd for him that they started to have conflicts with each other as it seemed like they didn"t have any cultural differences.

Countries with a single culture tend to ally with each other or avoid conflict overall because they understood one another.

"The Federated Eastern Republic, although they had one culture with the Pertheon Empire; the former had many more sub-cultures such as worship of nature and necromancy which was an eyesore for the latter. They wanted to reform the republic"s culture in secret but it they were found out. It escalated very quickly from minor arguements to disgust to an all-out war. That"s it." Allen finished the story.

"What about the nomadic lands? Are there no stories about them in those times?", Edwin questioned.

If a war of that scale occurred those times, then the nomadic lands should"ve at least been affected to a certain degree.

"Yeah, I didn"t hear any information about them in your story." Alice said.

"I saw no historical records about the nomadic lands." Allen answered.

"Ladies and gentlemen sorry for the delay, but the 7th item shall now be unveiled!" The host loudly declared, quieting down the crowd.

A few moments later, a movable desk was transfered out towards the stage, on top of the desk was a leather-bound book.

"This book is the 4th volume of the Flicker Encyclopedia! It is one of the rarest inscription of the uncommon internal energy technique of "Flicker", it"s not just a piece of literature, as it probably could even teach one to learn the said technique!", the host declared.

Now, another commotion occurred amongst the guests. The whole venue was as if, revived of its vigor and most of the people sticked their eyes onto the book.

"What"s with all the noise about flicker?", Edwin was baffled, in his mind it"s just a book that could teach somebody "Flicker".

"You don"t know? Flicker is one of the rarest techniques for internal energy pract.i.tioners, it"s like the spell "Teleportation" for magicians. There"s probably only two handfuls of people who knew how to execute that.", Alice explained.

" Aare technique?" The boy slowly turned his head towards Allen, who was looking at the book.

"If it"s a rare technique, why did Allen just teach it like that to me as if it"s expendable?", Edwin thought. After that, he inwardly sighed as he would maybe never know Allen"s reason for doing so.

"50,000 gold coins!", somebody started the bidding.

"75,000 gold coins!"

"1,000 mana stones!"

"2,000 mana stones!"

"250,000 gold coins!"

"5,000 mana stones!"

"5,500 mana stones!"

Edwin gaped at the fast increase of the bidding price of the encyclopedia, which easily surpa.s.sed the price of the Starstone!

"Now this is a real auction!" The corners of Alice"s mouth rose up at the sight of the crazy people bidding for the fourth volume of the Flicker Encyclopedia.

Finally, the price stabilized at 20,000 mana stones with the bidder coming from one of the private rooms.

"Are there anymore follow-up bids?", the host asked.

"20,000 mana stones. These people are crazy.", Edwin commented.

"I guess the price is worth it for them. After all, Flicker Encyclopedia is very rare.", Alice added.

"No more bids in three... two...", before he could say number one, his counting was cut by a voice.

"40,000 mana stones.", Allen plainly stated. However, his voice attracted all the people inside the hall.

"I guess Allen is crazier than them." Edwin was inwardly astonished.

"Huh, who would have such a large amount of mana stones from the audience below?" The man who was bidded 20,000 mana stones for the encyclopedia glanced down towards the heap of people, trying to find out who outbid him.

"Whoa, I would never even spend 40,000 mana stones on a book." Gavin said. He tried to spot for the person who bid such a large amount of mana stones, but couldn"t do so because the spot were Allen"s group was sitting was under a balcony.

However, from the angle were the man"s private room was positioned, he clearly saw Allen and committed his face in his memory.

In the end, the Flicker Encyclopedia Vol. 4 was sold to Allen for 40,000 mana stones.